Last year, I blogged about how I organized all of my Reading Wonders leveled readers and resources….Many people requested for me to share my weekly plans that I used to teach the series. Today, I am finally back to share that with you all! If you'd like to go back and check out that organization post, you can find that here.
When we first started using this program..I was just so overwhelmed by everything that needed to be done. The plans in the TE completely stressed me out because there was NO WAY I could do all of that in that amount of time.
I'd like to think that I'm a pretty tech savvy kind of gal, but the online component also overwhelmed me. There was so much offered online, but I felt that things were just all over the place. To help myself out, I ended up creating resources for myself to use to teach each week.
I created visual anchor charts so my students could refer back to the skills and strategies that are taught throughout the week. Also included in these packs are various worksheets to use throughout the week.
Creating these resources really helped me to know and understand what I was teaching each week. It forced me to read all the stories and understand the content I was teaching. I ended up creating a generic skeleton for my weekly plans. I mapped it out days 1-5 and listed all the things I would do each week.
I also created my own comprehension checks based on questions I wanted my students answering about the text they read. There are comprehension questions for the Reading Writing Workshop story as well as the Literature Anthology story. Practicing writing constructed response answers truly help my students with their writing and to prepare them for question 21 on the weekly assessment.
For planning purposes, it was really easy to stick to my schedule and pull out the resources I created. I would stick my weekly plans in a sheet protector and use the same plans week to week. In my planner, I'd just write down specific page numbers or activities that I would be doing for that week.
In the afternoons from 12:00-1:00 I teach writing and grammar. I use interactive notebook pages when introducing new grammar skills.
I hope this post was helpful to you. If you're new to the Wonders program, give it some time. It can definitely be very overwhelming at first, but it'll get better once you've established routines, procedures and become a little more familiar with it.
This week we were finishing up our learning on Data Analysis. In 3rd grade, students are required to create their own pictographs and bar graphs and be able to analyze their data as well. So..to practice this skill students were put into groups. With their partners they were required to generate a question they wanted to collect data on. For homework, they went home and conducted their surveys. The next day in school, they organized their data then created a bar graph and pictograph to represent the data collected. They then generated questions that other students would need to answer in regards to their graphs.
Some of the graphs included these topics: Favorite fun thing to do, favorite pizza topping, favorite NFL team, favorite sport, favorite gaming system, favorite flower, favorite color, and favorite food.
Once all of the posters were done I went and hung/posted them all throughout our classroom. I announced to the students that we would be playing Musical Math Mania!! They were sooo excited but had no clue what the game even was! LOL.
I played some music and they would boogie around the room. As soon as the music stopped they needed to quickly get to the nearest poster and start analyzing the data! They recorded the answers to the questions on their posters in their math notebooks. When the music started again, they would be able to boogie around the room again until the music stopped.
They LOVED this game and got a lot of really great practice in and didn't even realize it!
We started working on contractions this week. The students had so much fun working on this center, I decided to give it a facelift and add to my TPT store.
I've also decided to put it on sale for only $2.00 for the rest of this weekend!
This week we also started learning about fractions.
I did an introductory lesson to fractions using Whole Brain Teaching for my observation. I think it went pretty well. We spent some time discussing what fractions were, looked at examples, talked about fraction examples and non-examples then did a quick assessment on our learning using these task cards
All 28 of my students demonstrated complete understanding after our introductory lesson!
Whole Brain Teaching has truly transformed my teaching…. If you have never heard of WBT, definitely check it out!! There are even opportunities for FREE WBT conferences here!
Here is an awesome video of the fabulous Farrah Shipley teaching fractions to Kindergartners!!
Once the kids got down fraction of a whole, we moved on to fraction of a set. We called up on some students to the front of the room and started identifying fractions. 1/4 of the students are girls, 3/4 of the students are boys, etc. I then had the kids draw themselves and had them add as much details as possible. They put themselves onto their poster boards then wrote fraction sentences about their groups!
We've been hard at work researching and taking notes for our big Endangered Species Research Project. The kids are SO Excited and get so upset as they are learning more about why these animals are critically endangered.
If you're interested, you can find these note taking pages along with the booklet we plan to use to present our final project with in my TpT Store.
We've also been working on linear measurements this week. Third graders are required to be able to measure object to the nearest one-fourth inch.
We've been practicing a lot with worksheets and measuring things in the classroom….
BUT what better way to practice measurements than getting outside and having some fun?!
I invited some 6th graders to come in and teach my class how to make paper airplanes. The kids were so excited and it was also a great way for them to practice their listening skills!
We then headed out to fly our planes and measure the distance that it traveled!
If you'd like to try these activities out with your students, you can click on the image below :)
Be sure to follow me on Instagram or Facebook for more fun updates ;)
Also got to take some time out for some fun this week! We got to meet up with some friends from Washington. They're visiting Hawaii so we met them for some Happy Hour :) She is a second grade teacher…our classes were pen pals last year!
We're also continuing to work on poetry and figurative language. This is always a tough one but fun at the same time. So far, we've covered simile and metaphors, alliteration, idioms, and onomatopoeias.
I'm kicking myself right now because as I'm scrolling through my photos I realized I only took pictures of our alliteration pages!
Landan the Lizard lights a leaf
Marry the monkey makes a monster with a magical science kit
Emmeline the elephant loves to eat eggplants everyday.
Ayven the alligator loves to eat apples any day he sees one.
Jayde the jaguar got a job at the jungle's Jamba Juice.
Pretty Pam made chicken pot pie with pickles and peas.
We're also did a science experiment today. The kids were so excited learning about the scientific method.
Thats my week in a nutshell! Hope you enjoy your weekend :) I'm off to finish some work I had started throughout the week…and hopefully get a new Facebook Fan Freebie posted for you all sometime this weekend ;)
